Off of Life's Little Edge
by Pes Anserinus
Summary: Just put the gun down... please, put the gun down.
1. Author's NotePrologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Crossing Jordan. This isn't for profit. But oh the fun I have...  
Fair Warning: This deals with a really important issue, but a dark one nonetheless. If you don't like angst, or cliffhangers, don't read it.  
I got the idea while reading jmkw's "Balancing the Scales" (which if you haven't read-do so!!) but as you'll soon see it isn't similar at all. And someone said it best in a review somewhere (sorry not sure who!), about equating the whole fanfiction experience to telling stories around a campfire-I have to say you were absolutely right!! I love how reading other stories sparks the imagination!

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_Off of Life's Little Edge_

_By Shadowfax_

As she ran out of the small fourth floor apartment, an ominous sound stopped her dead in her tracks. Somehow, as if by fate, she had heard the tell tale click of a safety checked off a sidearm. She knew the sound like the back of her hand... she had grown up around department issue handguns, and was well learned by the time she was seven. After all, daddy was a cop.

That sound... her heart jumped into her throat.

He wouldn't, would he?

Had she pushed him too far?

They had fought before, but never like this. It had always been jovial, playful... almost fun. And they'd always laugh about it afterwards, because it'd all seem so pointless anyway. But tonight... tonight had been different. Actually, tonight had been downright rancorous. Laughter was the farthest thing from both their minds.

It took her a moment to process what any of this could mean. No, she was just hearing things. She was mistaken; her ears were simply still ringing from frustration. He wasn't the same, and tonight he had proven that he never would be again. Her best friend was gone; it felt like the man she once knew so well was already dead... he hadn't been her farm boy in quite a while now.

But.

She still loved him…


	2. Chapter One

It hit her like a baby grand that falls out of the sky in every old cartoon. She didn't want to lose him. Not like this. Running back into the apartment, she froze at the sight. She didn't think it would ever come to life versus gun. But now... it was real.

Just how long had he been teetering on the brink of disaster?

Where had her naive country detective gone? You know, the one who once wore his heart on his sleeve?

He turned to face her, partially wanting to react, but mostly he just didn't care anymore. He never should have left home. Hell. He didn't even have a valid conception of home anymore. He silently pleaded with her to say something meaningful—to give him some real, tangible reason as to why not to end this hell that people call life. But he knew there was nothing she could say. And he resented her that much more for it. Not that he'd listen to whatever came out of her mouth anyway... he just didn't see the point in caring anymore.

No. Things were clearer now then they ever had been. He could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It'd have been so simple too, if it weren't for those deep honey-brown colored eyes. She hadn't changed a bit... that sparkle was still there, though sad; it was the one she'd only allow him to see—as if her eyes were a window into her soul.

"Just put the gun down. Please. Just put it down..." she whispered, extending a trembling hand toward him, trying to bridge the rift that remained. He didn't say a word, but instead stared intently at the intruder who had taken his heart for her own, and proceeded to step on it, multiple times. She'd never seen that look come over him before... he was, completely expressionless and strangely calm. It terrified her to the core.

Time, it seemed, stood completely still.

She glared right back, trying to figure out what to do to get him to put the gun down before he did something she'd never live through herself. She took a second to size him up, for she had been so infuriated before, she hadn't taken the time to notice his worn down, severely battered frame.

He looked like he had survived Auschwitz… it was that bad.

He definitely hadn't been eating right. That is, if he'd even been eating at all. His wrinkled shirt hung loosely over his shoulders, and that belt had been pulled a few holes tighter. And as he repositioned his hand, she noticed how his watch slid off his wrist and partially down his forearm. He wasn't the same, not at all.

But then again, looking at him standing there, broken, and about to seal off his fate to the powers that be, made her realize that his heart was in fact still worn on his sleeve. Some things never change...

Only now, that heart was cold, bitter... no longer beating. And his eyes, once so bright, were now a dull, eerie shade of blue—almost completely devoid of life, or rather, the will to live. He had to be in there somewhere, she cried silently to herself. She wanted him back, so badly, and the situation was quickly becoming dire.

"Please..." her voice became desperate now, yet barely audible. She went to step cautiously towards him, hoping he'd give up his inner quarrel and let the old farm boy back in. Trying to touch his shoulder only succeeded in making him snap. He was angry with her; she knew that, but doing something like this never solved anything. It was a permanent solution to an often temporary problem. She should know—she had tried a different version of the same goal years back, and something inside her was always grateful it never really worked. But now there was a gun and her best friend in the equation.

"Get the hell out of here." he growled in a low, threatening voice... barely recognizable to her ears. Petrified of this transformation, she backed off, but didn't leave. Her legs wouldn't take her there, though her brain was screaming at her to run before she had to witness a suicide.

She didn't want him to die, why couldn't he see that?

"I. Do. L-L-Love... you..." she stumbled over the words, under her breath, trying to ease her own fear as well as talk him off of life's little edge. If only she could find more of her voice...

"Please, don't do this to me..," she tried again, though she sounded more like a mouse than a person. She was trembling fully now, not wanting to push him off the tip of the proverbial knife he'd been wavering on for the past minute and a half. He needed to be saved... badly. And she didn't know what to do.

"Get out!!" he yelled angrily.

"I c-can't l-lose you..." her meek, completely frightened voice tried yet again to make him understand. It wasn't working though, and she contemplated wrestling him for the gun—but that had no real chance at a favorable outcome either.

"Damn it! You already have!!! Don't you see? I'm gone, as good as dead, you said so yourself. Now get out of here... you don't need to see this, and then have to clean it up later. GET OUT!!" he choked, even angrier at her for simply being there. He was confused, lonelier now that she was standing right in front of him, and sincerely agitated because of it. He just wanted it all over with, the lies, the deceit, and the living hell.

His index finger twitched, nearly setting off the trigger, and she flinched. Turning away, she decided no matter how strong she thought she could be, she couldn't watch him do this, and he showed no mercy in backing down. He had made up his mind. He was adamant.

Tears filled her eyes as she bore a hole into the floor with her gaze. And her heart jumped as she heard three piercing shots fired in rapid succession.

One... two... three... Was it really that easy to end a life?


	3. Chapter Two

It had all happened in the blink of an eye, yet it felt like it lasted a lifetime.

He...really did it... she thought to herself, trying to make sense of the past few minutes. There wasn't any sense to be made. Opening her eyes slightly, but not making out any object in particular through the blurriness that were her tears, she didn't know what to feel. Shock, guilt, anger... or relief?

She laughed nervously for a moment, denying reality to its extent. It was over... everything was over. Or was it?

She was in shock, and nothing was real. It couldn't be. This was all some sick and twisted game. Or better yet, she was dead. Yeah, that's it. She was dead, and this was hell. That was her only rational explanation.

Drying her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt, she tried to focus on the grain of the wooden floor, but try as she might, she couldn't see anything. Her mind simply refused to process the images in front of her. He had killed himself, she could almost feel it deep within her bones, yet she couldn't bring herself to actually believe it.

For the few moments she remained standing there, as an eerie ambiance settled itself in the air of his small apartment. She could smell the distinct odor of a freshly fired gun, and she knew she was likely covered in residue. Great. One more thing she'd have to clean up she noted as the stray thought poked its way into her racing mind. What was she supposed to do now? Was she to run, never looking back? However, she couldn't make her legs move regardless if she even tried. She felt... paralyzed.

Only once before had she experienced such uncertainty, such fear... such loneliness. As she cowered there, memories of her mother lying lifeless on that cold hardwood floor flashed before her eyes. That image... that shade... Blood red, there's no other crimson like it. The funny thing was that she saw it daily, but she couldn't bring herself to visualize that color surrounding him now. She couldn't do this. She couldn't see this. Hell, she couldn't even breathe.

Instead of facing whatever picture was behind her, she chose to think about how it all could have come down to this. She had seen it before—fresh off the street, rookie detectives suffering horribly from premature burnout. It had happened to him, she knew, but there was so much more to it than that. She was at fault here too. The grief was substantial—the guilt? Unbearable.

She could remember just two years ago, how a jovial man who bounced unwittingly into her life made her smile. She remembered how things finally felt right (or at least less wrong), and how it seemed not so scary somehow, to let someone see a side of her that she had buried long ago. She recalled feeling safe around him, and he had been a source of comfort for a while. And there was the way his eyes once glistened in the dim lighting of the Pogue as they shared many a dance. She had fallen for him, little by little, and for once she was beginning to think it might have been okay to.  
  
But then their lives had changed. It simply wasn't the same after the entire Malden mess. Sure, they acted like everything was fine... and he eventually stopped by the pub again—resuming some sort of normal routine. They tried to push it all in the past, go on like nothing huge had ever happened. In fact, it was silently declared taboo to even speak of it. However, the tension between them remained an ever constant reminder that the past doesn't simply go away. And if left without confrontation, it never would.

She had subconsciously pushed him away when she needed him the most... exactly like she had done to anyone and everyone else who had come too close. But she never really got over him. Even now, she felt as though there was still a vacancy in her heart that only he could somehow fill. Why couldn't she have simply told him that when she had the chance?

He had taken on a heavier caseload after the Cahill crisis, and her soft country detective had begun to grow a hard shell. Over the past seven months, he became... distant. He no longer asked for those dances, and his smiles gradually became increasingly less frequent. In fact, she was hard pressed to even recall the sound of his laughter. She realized now that he had become increasingly withdrawn, and rarely talked about anything other than what a case may demand. He had thrown himself into his work more fiercely than ever, and it had been slowly eating away at him, much like a parasite feeds upon a host. She would have noticed it sooner, if it weren't for that damn brick wall always holding her an arm's length away.

The fact that something was indeed wrong did become apparent to her a few weeks ago, when he had broken off all contact with the city of Boston. It had been one night at the bar, when he mentioned something about feeling lost. He confessed to her that he wasn't sure that he'd made any of the right choices in his life, and that he was almost certain his parents were disappointed with his career path, though they never expressed any of the aforementioned disappointment. She hadn't said much of anything, but simply lent him a sympathetic ear. And the next day when she went to check up on him, maybe buy him lunch, he was gone. No goodbye, no nothing.

She had held this intense resentment at the way he left. She felt like he had given up on her somehow, and grew to begrudge that feeling in a very short amount of time. But looking back at that now, she knew it wasn't fair of her to snap at him like she had. Their argument and the bitter words they tossed out would be forever etched into her mind. And the sad part was starting to dawn on her—she had been so wrong. He had told her that he loved her just an hour ago; that he needed her, and she shot him down.

And now he shot himself down.

Between the guilt, the grief, the shock, and the anger, she began to wonder just where he ran to for those few weeks. She had planned on utilizing Nigel's powers for evil once again, but it occurred to her that maybe he hadn't wanted to be found. In fact, she was so upset with how he had left, she didn't really care. At least that's what she had told herself at the time. And she had promised herself that if he did ever come back, she wouldn't fall into that trap again.

She didn't know what had happened to him, but if the gradual wear and tear on her farm boy wasn't enough, he had learned that both his parents were killed in a multiple motor vehicle accident not three weeks prior. That's why he had left without explaination—to bury his mother and his father, together. He wanted so badly for her to come with, to be there for him, but he couldn't bring himself to ask. He just didn't have the heart to tell her, and he figured they were only friends anyway. It wouldn't have been fair of him to further disrupt her life simply because his was all upside down.

And now he had gone and scared the crap out of her... she was just standing there, shaken, probably thinking that he was dead.

She sighed heavily and began to crawl toward the door as he emptied the rest of the clip into his armchair. Had she not been there, he'd likely have followed his first impulse, and all she had thought to be true, would have been. But fate, it seemed, was finally on his side. Damn, now he needed to get a new recliner.

But soon the despondency hit him like a jackhammer pounds pavement. What had he just done? And in front of her no less? It was all a big mess. His life was one huge jumble of crap.

With a gasp, she turned to face him, noticing a desperate figure that was still alive, but far from well. The sound of his sidearm falling upon the wooden floor was music to her ears. He wasn't dead, at least not until she was through with him. Her mind raced as quickly as her heart was, and she began to feel infuriated all over again. But not without a hint of relief...


	4. Chapter Three

"What the hell were you thinking? Do you even know how much you just hurt me right now? I was right!! You aren't the same! I should hate you!" She cried out sourly—wanting to make him see the pain he had caused her. But she didn't need to rant for long, for he was already beating himself up.

All it took was one look at his head held low, and her boiling frustration fizzled down to a gentle simmer. He was still savable, wasn't he?

He looked to the side, to avoid the full blast of her harsh words, all the while closing his eyes and wishing it were over already. He didn't want to fight anymore. Even if he had, he couldn't—there simply wasn't any energy left.

She noticed his profile become rigid; his jaw wired shut, refusing to respond. He was in so much pain; she could overtly see it now, which is what hurt her even more. She quickly realized that his anguish was much more substantial than hers, so it was useless to continue a tirade tonight. No, what he needed now was her to be there, no questions asked.

Stifling her guilt, and her frustration, she moved towards him, exactly the same as before. And this time, she was relieved that he didn't back away; though he wouldn't look at her either. However, once he felt her small hands cup his face, he knew. He had been right to love her, even if she wasn't willing to accept it.

Every muscle in his body was incredibly tense, buzzing from overexertion, and his head was spinning, though her touch was soothing somehow. He wondered if she could ever forgive him.

She was wondering the exact same thing.

Spreading her fingers across the prominent ridges of his cheeks, she could feel sheer desperation underneath her hands. Something had happened to him—something he wasn't telling her. But how was she supposed to ask without pushing him back off a ledge?

His skin was warm, so alive, despite a heart so cold. But, maybe that heart was only frozen on the outside, and if she chipped away at the surface, she'd find a piece that was still beating in spite of whatever he'd been through. His face was similar too, yet jaded. The wrinkles from stress and worry were more than evident between his eyebrows. She felt compelled to slowly begin massaging the tightness away, while trying to uncover more of the old farm boy in his weary visage. He was in there somewhere... She could feel it. Her farm boy may have been lost, but she'd found him anyway.

Toying gently with the tips of his mussed hair, she managed to get a grunt out of him, though he still avoided her gaze. He knew that if he glanced up, there'd be a question or two in her eyes, and he wasn't looking forward to explaining himself. In fact, he was relishing in this unspoken interaction. He didn't have an answer for her anyway. And he wished he could make everything right in the world with one word. But alas, his desire for world peace would likely never be attained—at least not in his lifetime.

That had never stopped him from hoping before.

It was all some silly childhood dream anyway, and if anything in the past few weeks, he had learned that he could never be a child again. An innate sense of security had been stripped away, as if what he dealt with on the job wasn't enough. And so, all such juvenile aspirations became null and void. A lone tear escaped out of the corner of his closed eye. It didn't go unnoticed.

"I love you," she whispered, her voice finding confidence while she pulled him gently into her embrace. Tracing her nails softly against his rigid back, she marveled at how much smaller he seemed. He had nearly towered over her before, him and his strong muscular frame contrasting with her slender figure. However, he was almost at her level now—not in physical height per say, but more so in this feeling of helplessness.

She continued to rub methodically between his shoulder blades with one hand while the other wandered to the back of his neck. She received a sigh in return, which was more than he had given her before, and she managed to allow a slight smile pull at the corner of her lips.

He was savable.

"Let go, just let it out," she whispered reassuringly. He took another moment to try and reinforce his stance, but fortify it, he could not. It was useless. With one desperate motion, he dropped the weight he'd been carrying into her arms.

She was surprised, to say the least, but relieved to feel him relax—his tired muscles no longer twitching in angst. She held him there, as he whispered an apology that would have been filled to the brim with sincerity, had it not been for his hoarse, cracking voice. She didn't mind, for she was no longer searching for an admission of guilt anyway.

"I wanted you to come with—I wanted you there. Hell, I buried my parents, and all I could think of was you. I need you, I don't know why. But I do," he managed to say once his throat was nearly clear. Salty tears were running freely down his cheeks, as he finally let his eyes meet hers.

She was still stuck with whatever he had slipped into the middle of all that. Once she processed the impressively sandwiched tidbit of information, she found herself incredibly at a loss. She could feel her heart break all over again. However, she chose not to force him to explain in greater detail, at least not yet.

She should have known—found out somehow. She should have been there. But there wasn't much she could do about that now. He shifted at her lack of response, and she let him go. His eyes dropped to the floor again, as she searched for something, anything to say.

"You could have told me. I'd have been on the first plane out with you. I- I'm so sorry, that's not what you need to hear. I know, but I would have gone," she said, her voice taking on a rather concerned tone. She was dead serious, and she only hoped he'd realize that.

"Would you have? I mean come with me? I didn't think..." He couldn't finish. He hadn't the willpower to get into it right now, and he had already divulged too much. He instinctively braced himself for a not so pleasant response.

"Damn thinking! I would have, don't you know that?" She said assertively, though her voice lacked the anger that was so evident earlier. She sounded... almost disenchanted.

He chose to be sincere. It was all he had left to offer. "Honestly, no. I didn't know what to think. We are... well, I don't know what we are."

"We're two people who have been through way too much together to all of a sudden decide to go it alone. That's what we are. I should be so disappointed in you... but I have to admit. I think I'm more disappointed in myself."

He sighed, short and forceful, and she took his hand. "C'mon, let's get you cleaned up and then we need to talk. I know a great place for coffee and conversation, and the best part is, there aren't any holes in the furniture. Tomorrow we'll come back and see about letting this place air out. You're stuck with me tonight, like it or not. I don't think I can consciously let you out of my sight regardless."

He nodded in agreement and she led him into his bathroom, proceeding to find a washcloth and wet it down with warm water. Gently pushing him to sit, she methodically began to wipe his tears away. She was so assured, so gentle, and he couldn't help but recall how as a kid, his mother would do the same thing to clean up a cut or scrape. And then the band-aid would come out and make everything better.

Now that band-aid had taken on another form, put on in effort to heal a much different type of scar.

She'd never know how much of a comfort her simple gesture was for him. She had somehow managed to bring back a bit of his childhood security. He felt safe again, at least a little bit... not to mention, loved.

With a meaningful kiss to his forehead, she helped him up. "Let's go home," she whispered.

"Home?" he questioned.

"Yes. Home," and with that they headed out the door—hand in hand. And as she took in the scent of the muggy night air, she paused to silently thank the powers that be for helping her talk him off of life's little edge.

Fin


End file.
